Hot beverages for sale in restaurants or specialty shops are typically brewed at a high temperature in a large vessel, such as a brewing urn. The beverage is retained in the same urn at the brewing temperature until purchased by a customer. Such systems result in rapid degradation of the quality of the beverage. This is especially true for fragile beverages such as gourmet or speciality coffees. Typically the shelf life for a fine coffee stored at the brewing temperature will not exceed 15 or 20 minutes. This is not acceptable for commercial purposes, where large volumes of coffee must be brewed and stored for sale to customers.
More recently, the industry has become more aware of the need for storage systems which will preserve the quality of fragile and expensive specialty beverages such as fine coffees. One solution has been to manually transfer the brewed beverage into an insulated container such as a Thermos.RTM. bottle or an "airpot" for storage at a temperature somewhat below the brewing temperature, and closer to the proper serving temperature. Shelf life is thereby extended up to two hours before the quality of the beverage noticeably degrades. A second solution is to brew the beverage directly into an insulated holding container.
Contemporary commercial practices require that a restaurant or speciality shop such as a gourmet coffee shop have an atmosphere conducive to interaction between the serving personnel and the customer. Efficient and pleasant interactions between employees and customers are hampered by bulky machinery on or near the front counter, or by the necessity of serving personnel to turn away from the customer to prepare a cup of coffee or other beverage. This problem can be overcome using a system in which the serving taps are remote from the brewing or storage machinery. Such systems that exist in the prior art, however, do not store and deliver the coffee at the moderate temperature necessary for long shelf life of th coffee.
Further, specialty shops thrive on a large volume of customers who make small purchases of one or two cups at a time, and who require quick service a high volume peak times such as early morning and lunch hour. These shops depend on the ability to serve their customers quickly and efficiently, with courteous, polite and congenial service, while delivering a high quality product at the proper serving temperature. Prior systems for brewing and serving specialty beverages such as fine coffees are not adequate to meet these requirements.